Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - Bangladesh foreign exchange (forex) market witnessed a stable trend in the last week, ended on Thursday as the central bank continues its foreign currency support to the banks, market operators said.
The central bank of Bangladesh has sold US$74 million more to different commercial banks to meet the growing demand for the greenback in the market.
Talking to the BBN, a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, such foreign currency support may continue in the upcoming weeks in line with the market requirement
The US dollar was quoted at BDT 83.70 in the inter-bank forex market during the week unchanged from the previous level, according to the market operators.
On the other hand, most of the banks kept their BDT/US$ rates unchanged for customers in the last week.
The BDT/US$ selling rates for importers of major foreign and private commercial banks was at 83.70, while US$ buying rates from exporters were at BDT82.70 – BDT 82.95.
For non- commercial payments such as Tele Graphic Transfer as donations, wage earners remittance, dollar drafts etc, the average T.T Buying rate was in the range of BDT 81.5625-BDT 82.68 while average T.T Selling rate was at BDT 83.6640 on Thursday, the last working day of the week.
BDT/US$ SWAP market was in the last week. Total volume of SWAP transaction was US$254 million during May 27-31.
The central bank of Bangladesh had resumed providing the foreign exchange support in the recent months through selling of the US currency to the banks aiming to keep the foreign exchange market stable.
A total of $2.23billion was sold since July 01 of the current fiscal year (FY) 2017-18 to the commercial banks as part of its ongoing support to help settling import payment obligations, according to BB’s latest data.
The market operators, however, said the demand for the US dollar has recently increased due to higher import payments pressure, particularly of capital machinery, petroleum products and consumer items including food grains.
BBN/SSR/AD